


Saturday Morning

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4015906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Truth be told, Church’s life on campus is pretty predictable.</p>
<p>It's when that predictable schedule falls out of whack that he gets into trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday Morning

**Author's Note:**

> For Rori-Wolf of Tumblr

Truth be told, Church’s life on campus is pretty predictable. Some days he finds it frustrating that he can tell it’s precisely five-oh-six in the morning because he can hear his RA, one David Washington running past his door on his way outside for his morning run. On the other hand Saturdays don’t feel really started until his best friend Tucker comes by at ten to annoy the hell of out him, bouncing in like he fucking owns the place talking about some ‘piece of tail’ he’d gotten last night that Church knew he hadn’t. 

Of course that isn’t how Saturday actually starts, just the sort of moment that makes Saturday really feel like Saturday. No, the weekend starts in moments like this, where Church opens his eyes and glares blurrily toward the alarm clock to figure out what time it is. Not that it really is important what time it is. No, he has no where he has to be first thing, they keep a supply of toaster strudels in the mini fridge for Saturday morning breakfast, and since Tucker hasn’t knocked yet then clearly it isn’t ten, so the morning is given over to what the morning is always given over to: laying in bed, basking in the warmth of the body next to him and…

Wait…

Church’s eyes, already having closed again to drift back to sleep after a late night in his lab. Sleeping in is like, fucking heaven. Sleeping in is amazing because Church never has to do it alone. No, when he wakes up it is always in the all encompassing strength and warmth of his boyfriend’s arms around him. 

The problem right now? Those arms were missing. 

Church sits up and glances around, squinting in hopes of catching sight of Caboose doing something. Normally Caboose enjoys their mornings together, but if the big lug is doing something else it isn’t like Church is going to yell at him for it. Much. If Caboose comes directly back to bed to hold him. His search, though, is in vain, and with an annoyed grunt he reaches for where his glasses lay next to the bed. Even as he does he finally catches sight of the alarm clock, its baleful red numbers announcing it was just about to be…

There, right on time, heavy knocking, pounding really, on Church’s door. Ten? How could Caboose have let him sleep in so late? How the fuck has he even managed to sleep so late himself? It’s not like him to stay in bed this long. 

Tucker doesn’t give him time to mentally rant anymore. How he gets into Church’s room day after day, week after week without Caboose or Church opening the door to him Church hasn’t figured out yet, but there is Tucker, throwing the door open like it’s any other Saturday morning. 

It’s not. 

“Woah, late riser? Well, no problem, the love doctor is here, and he knows how to rouse people. Bow chicka bow OW!”

Tucker, as always, fails to duck the shoe Church scoops up from just under the bed to fling at his friend. On the other hand, like always, the blow only grazes the smaller man on its irritating flight out into the hall. Dammit one of these days Church is going to hit him in the face with it and Tucker will learn his lesson. Until that time, though, Church just gets the rest of the Saturday morning spiel. 

“Dude, you would not believe the bombshell I landed last night,” Tucker continues, going to the minifridge and stealing one of the toaster pastries to microwave for himself. They aren’t, of course, supposed to microwave them. Caboose had, by some miracle, discovered the secret to perfectly microwaving the things without setting a dorm on fire during their freshman year, and they had never looked back. 

Or asked what sort of miracle had led to such a success from the disaster prone goof. 

“No, I wouldn’t,” Church agrees dryly as he looks around the room. Caboose’s shoes and coat aren’t by the door. There isn’t any coffee in the coffee pot to say that he had woken up and decided to head out without Church but was kind enough to do the essentials. He hadn’t even set Church’s alarm to make sure he would wake up ‘on time’ like he did when he had early morning things to do.

“This was a class-A babe, I’m telling you,” Tucker continues, standing by the microwave, waiting for it to produce his wonderful food. Apple filled, of course, because Caboose has some strange aversion to strawberries that Church doesn’t understand, but he gives up his favorite fruit to make his boyfriend more comfortable. 

“I’m sure she was,” Church grunts, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up. Caboose’s backpack, always left below his hook by the door, is missing too. Could Church have forgotten about a serious paper or test that he has to spend the weekend working on? Quickly his eyes move to Caboose’s desk, a strangely tidy bastion in the mess of their dorm room, and sure enough, his laptop is gone too. This doesn’t make any sense. 

“Dude, her hair was red like a fucking fire truck, and long enough to get a good grip in, if you know what I mean,” Tucker grins as the microwave chimes done. 

And, like his usual idiot self, he reaches in and fumbles the pastry out with his bare hands, wincing and cursing under his breath until his fingers got used to the heat or whatever dumb bullshit there was behind whatever Tucker was on the weekends when he wasn’t a strangely brilliant classical music student. Seriously, how did a guy that spent all his free time ‘dropping rhymes’ also have such fucking skill with a violin? Caboose had once dragged Church to one of Tucker’s solo recitals and Church still won’t admit out loud that there had been a piece Tucker had actually almost made him cry with. Especially since the asshole had then proceeded to spend the rest of the night talking about how some complicated musical something or other would be a great counterpoint to a new tune he was working on. Church is certain you can’t meld classic with hip-hop or whatever it is Tucker does, but Tucker seems set on it.

Not that it was important to think about at this moment. The important question is where Caboose’s favorite pen is. Why there’s a handful of bottles of soda missing from their pack in the corner. Where Caboose’s car keys are. 

“What am I talking about?” Tucker laughs, and Church ignores him as he gets to his feet to move to the dresser in the corner. An almost frantic look through the drawers find a few shirts missing that Church is certain Caboose hasn’t worn since the last laundry day. “You like guys with short hair, so you don’t know anything about getting a grip. Anyway, she had these piercing green eyes and an almost predatory grace and…”

The only reason Tucker doesn’t get to finish is because the eye comment gets through Church’s head and he whirls, grabbing the shorter man by his shirt and slamming him against the nearest thing, which turns out to be Caboose’s desk which is missing Caboose’s cellphone charger. But that isn’t the important detail right now, not like Tucker’s comment. 

“Tucker,” Church growls, his voice low, “if you tell me this clearly did not sleep with you woman that you were hitting on was a senior named Carolina, we’re going to have problems.”

“Dude, I can’t see why you’d have a problem with me nailing a hot girl like Carolina,” Tucker answers, and Church slams him harder against the desk. “Woah man,” Tucker protests, his hands coming up to try and push Church away, “just because Caboose wants you doesn’t mean I do.”

“Her name,” Church snarls angrily, “is Carolina CHURCH. As in Leonard Church. As in if you try and put your grubby hands on my older sister, I will tell Caboose that you love bearhugs and have asked to get one every time he sees you.”

“Fuck no!” Tucker protests. “I like my ribs uncracked you sick fuck. And there’s no way a girl that beautiful is your…”

“Finish that sentence,” Church says, shaking his friend. “I swear to god finish that sentence and I will destroy you. Don’t think I can’t. I will ruin you, Lavernius. I’ll call your fucking mom.”

“Dude, no bringing families into this,” Tucker shouts, finally pushing Church back. 

“You started it,” Church finds himself shouting right back into Tucker’s face. “I swear to god the second I find Caboose I’m going to…”

He’s cut off by the strange look on Tucker’s face. The seriously confused look his friend is wearing. 

“Find Caboose?” Tucker asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “What the fuck are you talking about, Church?”

“Caboose isn’t here,” Church grumbles, backing away from Tucker. He looks around and all the old touchstones, the ones he’s already looked to, are the same. It’s bothering him. Where the hell is his boyfriend. Why would Caboose leave without telling him? “But when he comes back…”

“Church,” Tucker says, his voice low and soft and worried. “Church, don’t you remember?”

It’s like a nightmare that Church can’t wake up from. It feels like Tucker is about to say something terrible. Clearly not that Caboose is dead, because Tucker had clearly feared a threat of Caboose earlier. But what could be worse? Caboose had failed out? Or maybe they’d broken up. Oh god that couldn’t be it, right? What if Church had gotten drunk and they had fought? What if he’d hurt Caboose and the kind, gentle man had just… forgiven him? No. He doesn’t want to hear the next words out of Tucker’s mouth. 

“Remember what?” he asks anyway, trying to sound boisterous and not on the edge of a freak out. 

“He’s gone for the weekend, idiot,” Tucker laughs, shaking his head before taking a big bite out of his toaster pastry. “Big family reunion thing. Him and all seventeen of his sisters and their aunts and uncles and whatever else. It’s reunion weekend. Remember? Happened last year too.”

Church stands there for a long moment, looking around the room, to each of those touchstones again. Then he moves to the closet and opens it, looking at the clear gap left by Caboose taking his nicest set of clothes with him. There were conversations leading up to this. Conversations about how Caboose was going to go see his family and how Church was invited. Church had passed for this year because there was an experiment he was working on in the chem lab that seriously needed handled now and he didn’t trust handing data collection off to another person for it. But he also remembers that he was supposed to have lunch with Caboose after classes yesterday. Take an hour out of his day to spend with his boyfriend before the other man had to load up his car and take the drive to the airport and then fly home. 

Caboose hates flying. Church had promised to get him treats for the plane so he wouldn’t be so stressed. And he hadn’t done any of it. 

Dammit he’s fucked everything up. 

“I thought that was next week,” Church says weakly, flopping down onto the shitty couch against the wall to mope. 

“Nope, he left about three yesterday,” Tucker answers. “Saw him off myself.”

“You should have called me, fucker,” Church sighs, pulling his legs up to his chest. 

“Caboose made me promise not to bother you,” Tucker shrugs before moving to flop down next to Church. “Now, grumpy, what are you going to do about it?”

“Do about it?” Church asks. 

“Your boytoy gets back Monday after classes. How are you going to make it up to him for being a shitty boyfriend? You’ve got to plan this stuff out,” Tucker points out. 

Again Church sighs, this time moving to lean his head back against the wall. He knows what Tucker wants, and as much as he hates it, he knows his friend is right. 

“Alright… Tucker I need…”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Tucker chides, wagging a finger at him. “You’ve got to ask the right way.”

Church suppresses a groan before speaking again. 

“Oh great and mighty Love Doctor… I need your help.”

“Damn right.”


End file.
